2003 Mustang Convertible Top Care
May 12th, 2010
100 Years Young
There were motorcars before 1903, and airborne contraptions and motorized cycles. But what Henry Ford Arthur and Walter Davidson, William Harley and Orville and Wilbur Wright did in 1903 was build machines that, still today, 100 years later, are household names.
Ford, the Davidsons and Harley put brands on their machines that are as American as, well … apple pie. And the names of Wilbur and Orville Wright became forever associated with flight itself.
Their beginnings were humble enough. A shed out back bearing the name “Harley Davidson Motor Co.” sufficed for the first five years the Davidsons and William Harley built cycles together. Orville and Wilbur owned a bicycle shop until the itch to create a motorized flying machine completely took over their lives. And Henry Ford was as determined as the rest to create a company for the manufacture of the motorcar he’d been perfecting since 1896.
Six men. Three machines, enhanced with motors. One hundred years.
Arthur C. Hart could tell us a thing or two about those machines, and those years. AC turned 100 himself on June 24, 2003.
He was born in Ashton, Illinois, moved to Chicago after wedding Charlotte, then moved to Arenzville where he eventually became bank president after some years as clerk and vice president, built a house, planted trees and bought Fords exclusively.
One thing you can say for AC, you always knew how old he was whenever he bought a new Ford! He started with a Model T, bought used for $75 when his first daughter, Peg, was a baby, and drove it about 200 miles from Chicago to Arenzville. Picture doing that today in a Model T! Now picture doing it on roads back then—with a baby!
He next bought a Model A. Then eight new Fords between 1936 and 1956, a ’57 Drop Top (foldaway convertible), a ’59 T-Bird, a ’65 white Mustang convertible, and finally a Taurus, now with over 200,000 miles on it.
***
Karla, AC’s daughter, said of him, “Growing up, there were just certain things you did—you only drove Fords ….”
Bob (Karla’s husband): “Certain brand-conscious things were expected ….”
Jim (Peg’s husband): “That’s the way the folks are still—established in certain channels. They do things a certain way, get up at a certain time, eat their breakfast the same way every morning.”
Jim: “He was 85 when he retired.”
Peg: “Well, he cut back when he was 80, meaning he went in at 8:30 instead of 8:00!”
Karla: “He could take a day vacation whenever he wanted to, but he always said, ‘I’d better get back before they find out they can get along without me!’”
On the day Peg left for nurses training in 1946, AC took delivery of his first plane, a Cessna 149. Peg says, “I never forgave him because I could have learned to fly at his expense if he had just timed it a little differently!” He learned to fly from a friend, a former Navy pilot.
Peg learned to fly soon after, and for many years delivered planes cross-country for Mooney, a manufacturer in Colorado. She raced in cross-country Powder Puff Derbies, and was a charter member of Amelia Earhart’s Ninety-Nines, a group of 99 female pilots chartered in 1929.
Peg and Jim did their courting on a 1937 74 side-valve Harley-Davidson, and have happy memories of attending numerous trips, bike races and hill climbs on it.
***
When AC turned 99, Peg and Jim found the airplane AC had bought new in 1953, a Cessna 170, located in Southern Indiana. “For his 99th birthday, we took him to Indiana to visit his little baby,” said Peg. “Nothing could have pleased him more! This had been a very special baby for him, and to see that the current owners were taking just as good care of it as he had pleased him so much.”
***
AC shares a work ethic with Henry Ford, the Wright brothers, the Davidson brothers, and William Harley. He and his family’s lifelong use of the brands they created illustrate how indebted the world still is, 100 years later, to these incredible visionaries.
About the Author
Nancy Churchill is a freelance writer and copyeditor whith extensive experience writing promotional and marketing copy for the clients of the former graphic design, marketing and web design business from which she retired after thirty years.
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